Medical drugs and supplies that were supposed to go to the Public Health System are seen sold on the streets and the Health Minister; Elias Kapavore, is discouraging this illegal act.
“I want to announce that we have found out that a lot of people are selling these medical drugs and supplies on the streets, is increasing.
Those medical drugs and supplies were supposed to go to the hospital, but they are seen sold at a lot of marketplaces in the country, one of those places is Goroka Market.
All these medical drugs and supplies bought by the government should be or go straight to the hospital and not for anyone to carry and go sell them at the street market, and this is an important statement I am making,” Minister Kapavore stated in Parliament last week when responding to questions.
He said that the police are arresting people who are selling these medical supplies in the street and the department of Health will come down hard to make sure that the medical supplies that government pays for will go straight to the place it needs to go to, and people can receive them through the proper way.
“I want to say again that stealing medical drugs and supplies that should be going to the public health system is illegal and the police and the Department of Health have teams in place to make sure they will control this and improve our health system,” he said.
He added that the reason few hospitals are running low of medical drugs and supplies is due to people stealing them and selling them on the streets.
“For Medical supplies the government has committed funding of K280 million from this year’s budget. To date the government has released the K116 million for medical supplies worth of funding. The government is trying its best in the very difficult situation we are going through.
According to statistics from the Health Department, about 80% of our medical supplies are currently available in our health system. As I speak, there are different logistics companies who are engaged in supporting or delivering medical supplies to four of our regions.
I want to say that the government is trying its best to ensure the funding is coming through and to date up to 40% of the medical supplies funding has been released.
From the Department of Health and the PHAs who are struggling to provide better health care to our people, we have seen a lot of increase in medical drugs and supply sold on the streets where the medical supply or drugs are coming through the medical system.
For some reason especially antibiotics and anti-malarial medications or drugs are being sold on the street.
The Department of Health and Police are working together to control this issue and arrest those that are committing this illegal act,” he added.